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#1
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Cooling Problems
Hello,
Having a bit of a problem with my machine. I think that it is heat related, but I do not want to prejudice any of you. My hope is that changing the cooling for the CPU will do enough, but I am not sure if the amount of problems I am seeing is not pointing to a much more serious problem (a dying motherboard, for example). Please let me know what you think. Iggy ------------------------------------------------------------ Specs: ------ Athlon XP 2000+ AMD heatsink and fan ASUS A7V8X motherboard (v14 BIOS) PATA Drive: old Maxtor 53073U6 (30 Gb) SATA Drive: new Barracude 7200.7 (120 Gb) Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600 Pro video card Win XP Pro Hiistory: --------- Been running my machine with the SATA as the main drive since January 2004. One day, it fails to boot: checking in another system confirms that the drive (controller, most likely) is dead. Rebuilt system on old PATA drive, while waiting for retailer to send a replacement. Up to this point no problems. The ambient temperatures were hovering in the low 20s Celsius (that's a bit above 70 F for the Americans...). A few days later, I discover that I would have problems with rebooting after using the computer for a few hours. It would reset, the video would never turn on, but it would proceed to boot. If the computer was not very hot, the video would appear on the blue WinXP welcome screen, and be OK after that. Sometimes, even though the computer was reasonably cold, it would boot OK, but I would not be able to view DVDs: the Windows desktop would be OK, but the contents of the PowerDVD window would be completely scrambled. At this point, I thought that my video card was dying. Situation today: ---------------- Ambient temperatures: 30 Celsius (90 F). Computer only works OK with case open (i.e. mobo temp is reported as 32 C/89 F) and CPU speed set at 1250 MHz (nominal is 1667 MHz). CPU temp right now is 49C/120F. If I try to close the case, the temperature begins rising quite rapidly until about 57C for the CPU. However, pretty soon after it is closed, the computer begins to seriously slow down, until it completely locks up. Removing the case restores some functionality, but the machine needs to be rebooted to restore all of it. The system works nearly normally, apart from the HDD access (no video problems whatsoever). The PATA drive speed is reported as about 1Mb/s by DiskBench, which seems ridiculously slow. I get the feeling that the longer the machine is on, the slower it gets, but it might be just an issue with using more virtual RAM when the computer has been on for longer. Then again, the boot time is reasonably normal. Just as an example, Firefox can take about 40-50 seconds to open. Sometimes less. If I try to install the replacement SATA drive, the system slows down TERRIBLY (seems to get hung every time the drive is accessed for 30 seconds or so). It was OK for the first few boots (allowed me to clone my system partition), but booting off the SATA drive is basically impossible now. Sometimes I get through to WinXP, in which case it is extrememly slow; most of the time, it gets hung early on in the WinXP boot screen, sometimes it just resets itself during the boot process. If I try to run the computer at the full speed, it does not boot anymore, so I can't let you know what the CPU temp is then. |
#2
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What is the condition of your fans? also have you
cleaned any lint built up on you fans and heatsink? Also check you video card to make sure its fan is working and clean. And are your case fans working and clean? Also if possible remove the front of your case to check for any lint build up. check any place air moves in or out of you case. Jim M "Ignacy Sawicki" wrote in message . 1... Hello, Having a bit of a problem with my machine. I think that it is heat related, but I do not want to prejudice any of you. My hope is that changing the cooling for the CPU will do enough, but I am not sure if the amount of problems I am seeing is not pointing to a much more serious problem (a dying motherboard, for example). Please let me know what you think. Iggy ------------------------------------------------------------ Specs: ------ Athlon XP 2000+ AMD heatsink and fan ASUS A7V8X motherboard (v14 BIOS) PATA Drive: old Maxtor 53073U6 (30 Gb) SATA Drive: new Barracude 7200.7 (120 Gb) Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600 Pro video card Win XP Pro Hiistory: --------- Been running my machine with the SATA as the main drive since January 2004. One day, it fails to boot: checking in another system confirms that the drive (controller, most likely) is dead. Rebuilt system on old PATA drive, while waiting for retailer to send a replacement. Up to this point no problems. The ambient temperatures were hovering in the low 20s Celsius (that's a bit above 70 F for the Americans...). A few days later, I discover that I would have problems with rebooting after using the computer for a few hours. It would reset, the video would never turn on, but it would proceed to boot. If the computer was not very hot, the video would appear on the blue WinXP welcome screen, and be OK after that. Sometimes, even though the computer was reasonably cold, it would boot OK, but I would not be able to view DVDs: the Windows desktop would be OK, but the contents of the PowerDVD window would be completely scrambled. At this point, I thought that my video card was dying. Situation today: ---------------- Ambient temperatures: 30 Celsius (90 F). Computer only works OK with case open (i.e. mobo temp is reported as 32 C/89 F) and CPU speed set at 1250 MHz (nominal is 1667 MHz). CPU temp right now is 49C/120F. If I try to close the case, the temperature begins rising quite rapidly until about 57C for the CPU. However, pretty soon after it is closed, the computer begins to seriously slow down, until it completely locks up. Removing the case restores some functionality, but the machine needs to be rebooted to restore all of it. The system works nearly normally, apart from the HDD access (no video problems whatsoever). The PATA drive speed is reported as about 1Mb/s by DiskBench, which seems ridiculously slow. I get the feeling that the longer the machine is on, the slower it gets, but it might be just an issue with using more virtual RAM when the computer has been on for longer. Then again, the boot time is reasonably normal. Just as an example, Firefox can take about 40-50 seconds to open. Sometimes less. If I try to install the replacement SATA drive, the system slows down TERRIBLY (seems to get hung every time the drive is accessed for 30 seconds or so). It was OK for the first few boots (allowed me to clone my system partition), but booting off the SATA drive is basically impossible now. Sometimes I get through to WinXP, in which case it is extrememly slow; most of the time, it gets hung early on in the WinXP boot screen, sometimes it just resets itself during the boot process. If I try to run the computer at the full speed, it does not boot anymore, so I can't let you know what the CPU temp is then. |
#3
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It sounds like you may be using an underpowered/unstable power supply unit.
I would try replacing the PSU with a HIGH quality adequate wattage model and see if that doesn't fix the problems. -- DaveW "Ignacy Sawicki" wrote in message . 1... Hello, Having a bit of a problem with my machine. I think that it is heat related, but I do not want to prejudice any of you. My hope is that changing the cooling for the CPU will do enough, but I am not sure if the amount of problems I am seeing is not pointing to a much more serious problem (a dying motherboard, for example). Please let me know what you think. Iggy ------------------------------------------------------------ Specs: ------ Athlon XP 2000+ AMD heatsink and fan ASUS A7V8X motherboard (v14 BIOS) PATA Drive: old Maxtor 53073U6 (30 Gb) SATA Drive: new Barracude 7200.7 (120 Gb) Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600 Pro video card Win XP Pro Hiistory: --------- Been running my machine with the SATA as the main drive since January 2004. One day, it fails to boot: checking in another system confirms that the drive (controller, most likely) is dead. Rebuilt system on old PATA drive, while waiting for retailer to send a replacement. Up to this point no problems. The ambient temperatures were hovering in the low 20s Celsius (that's a bit above 70 F for the Americans...). A few days later, I discover that I would have problems with rebooting after using the computer for a few hours. It would reset, the video would never turn on, but it would proceed to boot. If the computer was not very hot, the video would appear on the blue WinXP welcome screen, and be OK after that. Sometimes, even though the computer was reasonably cold, it would boot OK, but I would not be able to view DVDs: the Windows desktop would be OK, but the contents of the PowerDVD window would be completely scrambled. At this point, I thought that my video card was dying. Situation today: ---------------- Ambient temperatures: 30 Celsius (90 F). Computer only works OK with case open (i.e. mobo temp is reported as 32 C/89 F) and CPU speed set at 1250 MHz (nominal is 1667 MHz). CPU temp right now is 49C/120F. If I try to close the case, the temperature begins rising quite rapidly until about 57C for the CPU. However, pretty soon after it is closed, the computer begins to seriously slow down, until it completely locks up. Removing the case restores some functionality, but the machine needs to be rebooted to restore all of it. The system works nearly normally, apart from the HDD access (no video problems whatsoever). The PATA drive speed is reported as about 1Mb/s by DiskBench, which seems ridiculously slow. I get the feeling that the longer the machine is on, the slower it gets, but it might be just an issue with using more virtual RAM when the computer has been on for longer. Then again, the boot time is reasonably normal. Just as an example, Firefox can take about 40-50 seconds to open. Sometimes less. If I try to install the replacement SATA drive, the system slows down TERRIBLY (seems to get hung every time the drive is accessed for 30 seconds or so). It was OK for the first few boots (allowed me to clone my system partition), but booting off the SATA drive is basically impossible now. Sometimes I get through to WinXP, in which case it is extrememly slow; most of the time, it gets hung early on in the WinXP boot screen, sometimes it just resets itself during the boot process. If I try to run the computer at the full speed, it does not boot anymore, so I can't let you know what the CPU temp is then. |
#4
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"DaveW" wrote in news:qQXLc.146420$IQ4.115415@attbi_s02:
It sounds like you may be using an underpowered/unstable power supply unit. I would try replacing the PSU with a HIGH quality adequate wattage model and see if that doesn't fix the problems. Would such a thing show up during hot weather? I changed to PSU (to a 350 W one) a year ago and have had no problems since. ASUS Probe reports the following voltages: 12 12.192 5 4.95 3.3 3.072 VCore 1.854 I guess that the 3.3 looks a bit low. Also this is running the system underclocked, so who knows what will happen otherwise. Iggy |
#5
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In article , Ignacy
Sawicki wrote: "DaveW" wrote in news:qQXLc.146420$IQ4.115415@attbi_s02: It sounds like you may be using an underpowered/unstable power supply unit. I would try replacing the PSU with a HIGH quality adequate wattage model and see if that doesn't fix the problems. Would such a thing show up during hot weather? I changed to PSU (to a 350 W one) a year ago and have had no problems since. ASUS Probe reports the following voltages: 12 12.192 5 4.95 3.3 3.072 VCore 1.854 I guess that the 3.3 looks a bit low. Also this is running the system underclocked, so who knows what will happen otherwise. Iggy There are two things wrong there. The 3.3V is low by almost 10%, while the spec is 5%. Your Vcore is also high. Depending on the model, the CPU takes 1.60V or 1.65V. http://www.qdi.nl/support/CPUQDISocketA.htm Static tolerance is 0.05V on Vcore. Max Vcore is 0.5V higher, as in 1.60 + 0.05 + 0.5 = Absolute max. Your 1.85V value is safely under the 2.15V allowed, but 1.85V is also higher than the static tolerance of 1.60 + 0.05. Take a look at the OVER_VOLT1 jumper, near the top of the board. Position 2-3 (rightmost) is supposed to disable OVER_VOLT1 and the manual says it is the default position for the jumper when the motherboard leaves the factory. If you were overclocking, then I could understand you wanting to use OVER_VOLT1, but it is really for people trying extreme overclocks. Now, the second problem is, how to interpret the 3.072V from the power supply. First of all, video cards do not tolerate low 3.3V that well. In fact, there are some video cards that like the voltage to be a hair higher than 3.3V (like AIW type cards). Either the video card is pulling the power supply down, or something else is. The 3.3V isn't typically used for motherboard power conversion, but it might be used for some PCI peripheral chips. +12V or +5V can be used for switching conversion to lower voltages. As this is an Athlon board, +5V is likely to be used to make Vcore, leaving +12V lightly loaded. It is possible to use a linear regulator off 3.3V, to make the 2.5V for the DIMMs, but that is a fairly light load. So, I would start pulling any PCI/AGP cards, one at a time, while measuring the output voltage of the power supply with a voltmeter. To measure voltages on the PSU, some supplies have a six pin AUX connector, and that has a couple of +3.3V pins on it. The +5V and +12V can be measured on an unused disk drive power cable. So, try stripping components until the measured value of +3.3V pops back up. The board will probably beep like crazy when the video card is missing, but that isn't going to hurt anything while you measure the power supply. Be careful while using the voltmeter, not to short the leads together, as big sparks and failures can occur. I recommend connecting the black (ground) lead, to a lug on a connector on the I/O panel on the back of the computer, keeping one lead of the voltmeter far away from what the other measurement lead is doing. If the power supply doesn't respond with a higher +3.3V as you pull hardware, then the power supply could need replacing. There is no practical way to measure the power consumption of the video card, so you won't know if the video card is actually at fault, or the power supply has become "a weakling". The best advice I can give, is if the power supply is always on the low side, no matter what load is on it, then swap for another supply. In terms of your temperature symptoms, leave your computer in its normal configuration, but with the side off the case. Using your hand, touch the various power consuming parts, like the surface of the video card, the heatsink, MOSFETs around the Vcore circuit, etc., to see if anything is kicking out more heat than you would expect it should. If the CPU heatsink is cool to the touch, and yet the temp reads 57C, that means the CPU die isn't touching the heatsink. You should check that the clamping tension is there, to hold the heatsink to the CPU. Perhaps the CPU die needs a new coat of thermal grease, something you should be able to buy at a computer store. A proper working CPU heatsink will be warm to the touch, as it carries heat from the CPU. HTH, Paul |
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